Le Polonais Roman Ingarden (1893-1970) est un phénoménologue disciple de Husserl à Göttingen. Leur dialogue continu représente le conflit classique entre idéalisme et réalisme, mais aussi la tension qu'est l'articulation entre la description eidétique de régions ontologiques et l'entreprise de constitution génétique du monde. Une première approche à travers quatre des textes d'Ingarden.

L'espace fait partie de ces réalités quotidiennes qui, selon Georges Pérec, loin d'être des évidences, sont en fait des opacités. Opacité au sens de ce qui est toujours déjà là mais sans être jamais interrogé, sans que sa réalité ni sa nature ne soient questionnées. Pourtant l'espace est à la fois notre matière et notre forme, ce dans quoi nous vivons et ce que nous créons, ce qui nous habite et ce que nous tissons. Pour tenter d'éclairer cette réalité énigmatique, (...) nous prendrons un chemin de biais, et nous interrogerons la manière dont les différents arts (peinture, architecture, art des jardins, danse, arts plastiques) s'emparent de l'espace et nous invitent à en faire une expérience à chaque fois singulière et intrigante. (shrink)

Cette étude est née de la remarque troublante d’un roman dans lequel un personnage relit Anna Karénine et se rend compte qu’il a tout oublié de sa première lecture : l’histoire, les émotions vécues alors, tout cela paraît n’avoir pas laissé de traces. Je me suis donc interrogée sur la nature de l’expérience esthétique et le type de souvenir qu’elle engendre. Une expé­rience peut-elle ne pas laisser de traces ? mais alors est-elle encore une expérience ? ou bien peut-on envisager (...) des traces qui ne soient pas des souvenirs disponibles, mobilisables à volonté ? et comment alors les conce­voir ? Il s’agissait donc de cerner à la fois le type d’expérience que forme l’expérience esthétique et le type de souvenirs qui s’y constituent. Partant de Husserl, l’analyse a permis de définir l’expérience esthétique comme expé­rience menée dans la neutralité, sur le mode du quasi ; ce faisant cela paraît accréditer la possibilité qu’il n’y ait pas de réels souvenirs mais seulement des quasi-souvenirs. Néanmoins parce que cette thèse reste paradoxale, j’ai cherché le moyen de concilier à la fois la neutralité existentielle de cette expérience dans l’appréhension de l’objet esthétique et la possibilité d’une affection réelle voire d’une transformation en profondeur du sujet. J’ai alors poursuivi l’examen en m’appuyant sur un texte de Roman Ingarden ( Vom Erkennen des literarischen Kunstwerks , § 24) et sur les leçons des synthèses passives de Husserl. L’enjeu de cette recherche engage donc la place et le rôle de l’expérience esthétique dans la constitution de la personnalité. (shrink)

Il s’agira ici de préciser les enjeux, les résultats et les lignes de tension de l’analyse ontologique des œuvres d’art telle qu’elle est développée par Roman Ingarden. Si en effet le programme ontologique d’Ingarden se déploie de manière large et complexe entre ontologie formelle, matérielle et existentiale, il tend aussi à absorber la phénoménologie de la conscience pure en tant que celle-ci constitue une région ontologique spécifique. À partir de ce renversement des rapports entre ontologie et phénoménologie, Ingarden élabore une (...) conception de la constitution réservée aux seuls objets intentionnels et expressément distincte de la phénoménologie génétique transcendantale. Ce faisant Ingarden rencontre sur le terrain esthétique une double difficulté et comme une double contrainte : rendre compte, d’une part, de la constitution des objets esthétiques qui ne sont pas donnés d’avance mais résultent variablement des opérations de concrétisation des divers récepteurs, et déterminer, d’autre part, les conditions de leurs valeurs, lesquelles relèvent à leur tour d’une opération de constitution soumise à variation. Nous essaierons alors d’envisager jusqu’à quel point Ingarden peut maintenir l’approche ontologique en position exclusive. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to show that the notion of landscape is a phenomenological typical object and a perfect meeting point of different fields of study, and, in particular, a distinctive topic for a dialogue between phenomenology and human sciences. Starting from an analysis of a text of Erwin Straus, we attempt to support the view that into all kinds of landscape—sensory, perceptual, geographical, pictorial or built—we can read various ways of living, dwelling or being in the world, (...) or in other words we can read into them some forms of the original experience. This means that within all landscapes, as embedded in these forms of experience, we can read various ways of living, dwelling or being in the world. So we believe it is possible to constitute and to think a unitary sense of landscape from a phenomenological interpretation of space and human behaviour. (shrink)

L’article se propose de présenter la conception de la lecture défendue par Roman Ingarden. Elle est comprise comme un processus complexe entre un lecteur et une œuvre littéraire, au cours duquel le lecteur porte la responsabilité de faire exister le sens du texte, soit d’en actualiser la vérité. Cette conception trouve des prolongements et des affinités aussi bien chez Jean-Paul Sartre que chez Hans-Georg Gadamer. Tous les trois s’accordent sur le fait qu’il y a une rectitude de la lecture qui (...) trouve ses normes et ses règles dans l’œuvre mais suppose un lecteur scrupuleux et généreux, qualifié pour s’efforcer d’éviter le relativisme et le nihilisme. La lecture ainsi prise au sérieux s’avère une expérience cognitive et esthétique au service des valeurs. Elle se caractérise comme une expérience de création et de découverte au terme de laquelle la vérité est toujours l’apparition de « la chose même ». (shrink)

Le livre introduit, traduit et annoté par P. Limido-Heulot s’ajoute aux rares traductions françaises des œuvres d’Ingarden: à l’exception d’articles isolés, notons que les traductions de Philibert Secretan et celle de la musicologue montréalaise Dujka Smoje étaient jusqu’à ce jour les seules à reprendre en français sous la forme de livres des ouvrages publiés par le phénoménologue polonais. Bien qu’elle ne nous offre pas un ouvrage intégral d’Ingarden, la traduction de Limido-Heulot regroupe toutefois des textes qui, (...) pour trois d’entre eux, avaient déjà été réunis par l’auteur dans son recueil d’articles Z badan nad filozofia wspolczesna en 1963. (shrink)

In this innovative study Patricia Kitcher argues that we can only understand the deduction of the categories in Kant's Critique of Pure Reason in terms of his attempt to fathom the psychological prerequisites of thought. Thus a consideration of his conception of psychology is essential to an understanding of his philosophy. Kitcher specifically considers Kant's claims about the unity of the thinking self; the spatial forms of human perceptions; the relations among mental states necessary for them to have content; (...) the relations between perceptions and judgment; and the limits of philosophical insight into psychological processes. (shrink)

What is morality? Where does it come from? And why do most of us heed its call most of the time? In Braintrust, neurophilosophy pioneer Patricia Churchland argues that morality originates in the biology of the brain. She describes the "neurobiological platform of bonding" that, modified by evolutionary pressures and cultural values, has led to human styles of moral behavior. The result is a provocative genealogy of morals that asks us to reevaluate the priority given to religion, absolute rules, (...) and pure reason in accounting for the basis of morality. Moral values, Churchland argues, are rooted in a behavior common to all mammals--the caring for offspring. The evolved structure, processes, and chemistry of the brain incline humans to strive not only for self-preservation but for the well-being of allied selves--first offspring, then mates, kin, and so on, in wider and wider "caring" circles. Separation and exclusion cause pain, and the company of loved ones causes pleasure; responding to feelings of social pain and pleasure, brains adjust their circuitry to local customs. In this way, caring is apportioned, conscience molded, and moral intuitions instilled. A key part of the story is oxytocin, an ancient body-and-brain molecule that, by decreasing the stress response, allows humans to develop the trust in one another necessary for the development of close-knit ties, social institutions, and morality. A major new account of what really makes us moral, Braintrust challenges us to reconsider the origins of some of our most cherished values. (shrink)

Introduction to the Institutional Logics Perspective -- Precursors to the Institutional Logics Perspective -- Defining the Inter-institutional System -- The Emergence, Stability and Change of the Inter-institutional System -- Micro-Foundations of Institutional Logics -- The Dynamics of Organizational Practices and Identities -- The Emergence and Evolution of Field-Level Logics -- Implications for Future Research.

Parmenides of Elea was the most important and influential philosopher before Plato. He rejected as impossible the scientific inquiry practiced by the earlier Presocratic philosophers and held that generation, destruction, and change are unreal and that only one thing exists. In this book, Patricia Curd argues that Parmenides sought to reform rather than to reject scientific inquiry, and she offers a more coherent account of his influence on later philosophers._ _The Legacy of Parmenides_ examines Parmenides' arguments, considering his connection (...) to earlier Greek thought and how his account of what-is could have served as a model for later philosophers. Curd also explores the theories of his successors, including the Pluralists, the Atomists, the later Eleatics, and the later Presocratics. She concludes with a discussion of the importance of Parmenides' work to Plato's _Theory of Forms._ _The Legacy of Parmenides_ challenges traditional views of early Greek philosophy and provides new insights into the work of Parmenides. "_The Legacy of Parmenides_ represents a milestone... of Parmenides' interpretation. It is full of ideas and tells a coherent story about Parmenides and early Greek thought." --_ Alexander Nehamas, Princeton University___ "Professor Curd offers a genuinely original and possibly correct interpretation of the core thesis of the poem of Parmenides in a field so well worked over that saying something both new and true is profoundly difficult, this is a notable achievement." --_ Thomas M. Robinson, University of Toronto___ "This will be a substantial book in the story of early Greek philosophy, and future writers on the tradition from Thales through Plato will not be able to ignore it without missing an important interpretive alternative. It will be of value to students of Presocratic philosophy or the Greek tradition, as well as to students of the scientific revolution, cosmology, the origins of logic, or comparative mysticism." --_ Scott W. Austin, Texas A&M University___ PATRICIA CURD_ is professor at Purdue University where she works primarily in Ancient Philosophy. She is a co-editor of _Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy_, and is the editor of _A Presocratics Reader._. (shrink)

Evolutionary biology and feminism share a variety of philosophical and practical concerns. I have tried to describe how a perspective from both evolutionary biology and feminism can accelerate the achievement of goals for both feminists and evolutionary biologists. In an early section of this paper I discuss the importance of variation to the disciplines of evolutionary biology and feminism. In the section entitled “Control of Female Reproduction” I demonstrate how insight provided by participation in life as woman and also as (...) a feminist suggests testable hypotheses about the evolution of social behavior—hypotheses that are applicable to our investigations of the evolution of social behavior in nonhuman animals. In the section on “Deceit, Self-deception, and Patriarchal Reversals” I have overtly conceded that evolutionary biology, a scientific discipline, also represents a human cultural practice that, like other human cultural practices, may in parts and at times be characterized by deceit and self-deception. In the section on “Femininity” I have indicated how questions cast and answered and hypotheses tested from an evolutionary perspective can serve women and men struggling with sexist oppression. (shrink)

Current treatments of practical rationality understand reasons as considerations counting in favor of or against some practical option, treating the positive and the negative case as symmetrical. Typically the focus is on examples of positive reasons. However, I want to shift the spotlight to negative reasons, as making a tighter or more direct link to rationality — and ultimately to morality, which is what much of the current interest in reasons is meant to clarify. Recognizing a positive/negative asymmetry in normative (...) force will let us reconcile the view of moral or other requirements as based on reasons with the denial that reasons as such, even all-thingsconsidered reasons, yield requirements — or as I like to put it, rationally compel. (shrink)

Writing for non-specialists and students as well as for fellow philosophers, this book explores some basic issues surrounding sex and love in today's world, among them consent, objectification, nonmonogamy, racial stereotyping, and the need to reconcile contemporary expectations about gender equality with our beliefs about how love works. Author Patricia Marino argues that we cannot fully understand these issues by focusing only on individual desires and choices. Instead, we need to examine the social contexts within which choices are made (...) and acquire their meanings. That perspective, she argues, is especially needed today, when the values of individualism, self-expression, and self-interest permeate our lives. Marino asks how we can fit these values, which govern so many areas of contemporary life, with the generosity, caring, and selflessness we expect in love and sex. Key Features ofPhilosophy of Sex and Love: An opinionated introduction Offers a contemporary, problems-based approach to the subject, helping readers better understand and address current issues and controversial questions Includes coverage of sex and love as they intersect with topics like disability, race, medicine, and economics Considers not only the ethical, but also the broadly social and political dimensions of sex and love Includes a helpful introduction and conclusion in each chapter and is written throughout in a clear and straightforward style, with examples and sign-posts to help guide the student and general reader A comprehensive and up-to-date bibliography provides a valuable tool for anyone's further research P> Offers a contemporary, problems-based approach to the subject, helping readers better understand and address current issues and controversial questions Includes coverage of sex and love as they intersect with topics like disability, race, medicine, and economics Considers not only the ethical, but also the broadly social and political dimensions of sex and love Includes a helpful introduction and conclusion in each chapter and is written throughout in a clear and straightforward style, with examples and sign-posts to help guide the student and general reader A comprehensive and up-to-date bibliography provides a valuable tool for anyone's further research. (shrink)

Philosopher, theologian, educational theorist, feminist and political pamphleteer, Mary Astell was an important figure in the history of ideas of the early modern period. Among the first systematic critics of John Locke's entire corpus, she is best known for the famous question which prefaces her Reflections on Marriage: 'If all men are born free, how is it that all women are born slaves?' She is claimed by modern Republican theorists and feminists alike but, as a Royalist High Church Tory, the (...) peculiar constellation of her views sits uneasily with modern commentators. Patricia Springborg's study addresses these apparent paradoxes, recovering the historical and philosophical contexts to her thought. She shows that Astell was not alone in her views; rather, she was part of a cohort of early modern women philosophers who were important for the reception of Descartes and who grappled with the existential problems of a new age. (shrink)

'During the course of the seventeenth century, within the scholastic tradition itself, commentaries on Aristotle's natural philosophical works increasingly gave way to textbooks and compendia organized along thematic lines' (Dear 1985, 161).

A recent special issue in the Journal of Business Ethics gathered together a variety of papers addressing the challenges of putting virtue ethics into practice :563–565, 2013). The editors prefaced their outline of the various papers with the assertion that exploring the practical dimension of virtue ethics can help business leaders discover their proper place in working for a better world, as individuals and within the family, the business community and society in general :563–565, 2013). Scholars are yet to explore (...) the role of virtuous organisational leaders in the pursuit of Eudaimonia. This paper is a qualitative study which considered company directors’ self-understandings in light of a virtue ethics conceptual framework. The aim of the study is to explore whether virtue ethics rather than deontology and consequentialism is a better vehicle for expressing directors’ self-understandings about their ideals and role. (shrink)

Buddhist philosophy asserts that human suffering is caused by ignorance regarding the true nature of reality. According to this, perceptions and thoughts are largely fabrications of our own minds, based on conditioned tendencies which often involve problematic fears, aversions, compulsions, etc. In Buddhist psychology, these tendencies reside in a portion of mind known as Store consciousness. Here, I suggest a correspondence between this Buddhist Store consciousness and the neuroscientific idea of stored synaptic weights. These weights are strong synaptic connections built (...) in through experience. Buddhist philosophy claims that humans can find relief from suffering through a process in which the Store consciousness is transformed. Here, I argue that this Buddhist 'transformation at the base' corresponds to a loosening of the learned synaptic connections. I will argue that Buddhist meditation practices create conditions in the brain which are optimal for diminishing the strength of our conditioned perceptual and behavioural tendencies. (shrink)

Moral diversity is a fundamental reality of today’s world, but moral theorists have difficulty responding to it. Some take it as evidence for skepticism – the view that there are no moral truths. Others, associating moral reasoning with the search for overarching principles and unifying values, see it as the result of error. In the former case, moral reasoning is useless, since values express individual preferences; in the latter, our reasoning process is dramatically at odds with our lived experience. Moral (...) Reasoning in a Pluralistic World takes a different approach, proposing an alternative way of thinking about moral reasoning and progress by showing how diversity and disagreement are compatible with theorizing and justification. Patricia Marino demonstrates that, instead of being evidence for skepticism and error, moral disagreements often arise because we value things pluralistically. This means that although people share multiple values such as fairness, honesty, loyalty, and benevolence, we interpret and prioritize those values in various ways. Given this pluralistic evaluation process, preferences for unified single-principle theories are not justified. Focusing on finding moral compromises, prioritizing conflicting values, and judging consistently from one case to another, Marino elaborates her ideas in terms of real-life dilemmas, arguing that the moral complexity and conflict we so often encounter can be part of fruitful and logical moral reflection. Aiming to draw new connections and bridge the gap between theoretical ethics and applied ethics, Moral Reasoning in a Pluralistic World offers a sophisticated set of philosophical arguments on moral reasoning and pluralism with real world applications. (shrink)

The Oxford Handbook of Jane Addams is a selective collection of original analyses offered by an international group of social and political theorists who have contributed to the burgeoning field of Addams Studies. This collection pays particular attention to her contributions to scholarly fields of sociology and philosophy as well as to more professional disciplines of public administration and social work. Furthermore, this volume signifies Addams's globalimpact as scholars from all over the world contribute to the tapestry of her intellectual (...) legacy. (shrink)

There are two prominent viewpoints regarding the nature of rationality and how it should be evaluated in situations of interest: the traditional axiomatic approach and the newer ecological rationality. An obstacle to comparing and evaluating these seemingly opposite approaches is that they employ different language and formalisms, ask different questions, and are at different stages of development. I adapt a formal framework known as SCOP to address this problem by providing a comprehensive common framework in which both approaches may be (...) defined and compared. The main result is that the axiomatic and ecological approaches are in far greater agreement on fundamental issues than has been appreciated; this is supported by a pair of theorems to the effect that they will make accordant rationality judgements when forced to evaluate the same situation. I conclude that ecological rationality has some subtle advantages, but that we should move past the issues currently dominating the discussion of rationality. (shrink)

This paper explores the intellectual relationship between three eighteenth century women thinkers: Catharine Trotter Cockburn, and the Bluestockings Elizabeth Carter and Catherine Talbot. All three share a virtue-ethical approach according to which human happiness depends on the harmonization of our essentially rational and sociable natures. The affinity between the Bluestockings and Cockburn, I show, illuminates important new avenues for thinking about the Bluestockings as philosophers in their own right and for thinking about the feminist dimensions of Cockburn's morality. Further, their (...) shared moral outlook sheds interesting light on the burgeoning feminism of the eighteenth century and the contributions of Cockburn and the Bluestockings to a new and growing discourse about women and their social and political role. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Kant-Studien Jahrgang: 108 Heft: 2 Seiten: 218-246.

Patricia Hill Collins reflects upon her past, present, and future scholarship.

This paper argues that corporate governance reformers in Anglo-American jurisdictions should consider a different approach in their quest for better corporate governance. Traditionally, corporate governance reform has taken a structural approach, tightening the rules around the number of independent directors required on boards and committees and fine-tuning the definition of independence. However, such an approach has failed to achieve effective corporate governance. Moreover, this approach is informed by the arguably discredited assumption that individuals are rational self-interest utility maximizers. This conceptual (...) paper questions why corporate governance scholars and regulators remain uncritical of this assumption and suggests an approach to reform inspired by a different view of human nature. Indeed, incorporating an actor-based approach to reform into existing structures may better achieve effective corporate governance while addressing an unjustified adherence to this flawed assumption. (shrink)

My comments focus on Proops’s treatment of the Paralogisms. I agree with many aspects of his discussion, including his views about the project of Rational Psychology and his analyses of how, exactly, the arguments of the Paralogisms are defective in form, but I disagree with his interpretation of the First Paralogism. I argue that the source of confusion that Kant diagnoses is not the grammatical distribution of ‘I’ as singular, but the fact that the I-representation is both empty and necessary (...) for cognition. (shrink)

How does Kant understand the representation of an empirical self? For Kant, the sources of the representation must be both a priori and a posteriori. Several scholars claim that the a priori part of the ‘self’ representation is supplied by the category of ‘substance,’ either a regular substance (Andrew Chignell), a minimal substance (Karl Ameriks) or a substance analog (Katharina Kraus). However, Kant opens the Paralogisms chapter by announcing that there is a thirteenth ‘transcendental’ concept or category: “We now come (...) to a concept that was not entered in the above general list of transcendental concepts, and that must yet be classed with them … This is the concept – or, if one prefers, the judgment – I think.” (A341/B399). I argue that it is the ‘I think’ that provides the a priori framework for the representation of the empirical self. (shrink)

¿Está suficientemente presente el deseo en la Divina Comedia para tomarlo en consideración? ¿Es realmente la purificación del deseo el núcleo del Purgatorio dantesco? Con estas dos preguntas queremos iluminar el tema del deseo en el poema dantesco. La disertación se enmarcará en el sentido de desiderium aportado por santo Tomás en su Tratado de las pasiones (S. Th., I-II, q.22-48) y en las cuestiones relativas a las potencias del alma (S. Th., I, q.78-80). Con el marco tomista como referencia, (...) estudiaremos la purificación del deseo, especialmente del racional, y la entenderemos como el proceso de ordenación y desvelamiento del deseo último del hombre: contemplar a Dios cara a cara. Para ello, destacaremos la ayuda de la virtud y de la educación de la mirada como dos factores fundamentales para culminar el ascenso por la montaña de la purificación y permitir al alma alcanzar la cumbre de sus deseos en el Paraíso. Como conclusión, señalaremos que la purificación del deseo ilumina nuestra naturaleza y permite lograr la unión real entre Dios y su criatura. (shrink)

Sex determination offers an opportunity to address many classic questions of developmental biology. In addition, because sex determination evolves rapidly, it offers an opportunity to investigate the evolution of genetic hierarchies. Sex determination in Drosophila melanogaster is controlled by the master regulatory gene, Sex lethal (Sxl). DmSxl controls the alternative splicing of a downstream gene, transformer (tra), which acts with tra2 to control alternative splicing of doublesex (dsx). DmSxl also controls its own splicing, creating an autoregulatory feedback loop that ensures (...) expression of Sxl in females, but not males. A recent paper1 has shown that in the dipteran Ceratitis capitata later (downstream) steps in the regulatory hierarchy are conserved, while earlier (upstream) steps are not. Cctra is regulated by alternative splicing and apparently controls the alternative splicing of Ccdsx. However, Cctra is not regulated by CcSxl. Instead it appears to autoregulate in a manner similar to the autoregulation seen with DmSxl. BioEssays 25:1–4, 2003. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

. Current debates concerning the concept of mental disorder involve many different philosophical issues. However, it is not always clear from these discussions how, or whether, these issues relate to one another, or in exactly what way they are important for the definition of disorder. This article aims to sort through some of the philosophical issues that arise in the current literature and provide a clarification of how these issues are related to one another and whether they are necessary for (...) defining disorder. I argue that the main concern in defining disorder, namely demarcation, is obscured by a number of these other philosophical issues and that a focus on demarcation gives us a means of placing these other issues in a clarifying context. (shrink)

A set of six publications have introduced, commented, criticized and defended Amir Alexander’s book on infinitesimals published in 2014. The aim of the following article is to bring the various arguments together.

Although both Kant and Wittgenstein made claims about the “unknowability” of cognitive subjects, the current practice of assimilating their positions is mistaken. I argue that Allison’s attempt to understand the Kantian self through the early Wittgenstein and McDowell’s linking of Kant and the later Wittgenstein distort rather than illuminate. Against McDowell, I argue further that the Critique’s analysis of the necessary conditions for cognition produces an account of the sources of epistemic nonnativity that is importantly different from McDowell’s own account (...) in terms of a ‘second nature’ created through ‘Bildung’. Finally, I argue that Kant’s epistemic analyses also lead to a model of the cognitive self that answers two contemporary questions: why should we refer to selves at all? in what dies the unity of a subject of thought consist? (shrink)

Patricia Crone's _God's Rule_ is a fundamental reconstruction and analysis of Islamic political thought focusing on its intellectual development during the six centuries from the rise of Islam to the Mongol invasions. Based on a wide variety of primary sources -- including some not previously considered from the point of view of political thought -- this is the first book to examine the medieval Muslim answers to questions crucial to any Western understanding of Middle Eastern politics today, such as (...) why states are necessary, what functions they are meant to fulfill, and whether or why they must be based on religious law. The character of Muslim political thought differs fundamentally from its counterpart in the West. The Christian West started with the conviction that truth and political power belonged to separate spheres. Ultimately, both power and truth originated with God, but they had distinct historical trajectories and regulated different aspects of life. The Muslims started with the opposite conviction: truth and power appeared at the same time in history and regulated the same aspects of life. In medieval Europe, the disagreement over the relationship between religious authority and political power took the form of a protracted controversy regarding the roles of church and state. In the medieval Middle East, religious authority and political power were embedded in a single, divinely sanctioned Islamic community -- a congregation and state made one. The disagreement, therefore, took the form of a protracted controversy over the nature and function of the leadership of Islam itself. Crone makes Islamic political thought accessible by relating it to the contexts in which it was formulated, analyzing it in terms familiar to today's reader, and, where possible, comparing it with medieval European and modern political thought. By examining the ideological point of departure for medieval Islamic political thought, Crone provides an invaluable foundation for a better understanding of contemporary Middle Eastern politics and current world events. (shrink)

Kant's discussion of the relations between cognition and self-consciousness lie at the heart of the Critique of Pure Reason, in the celebrated transcendental deduction. Although this section of Kant's masterpiece is widely believed to contain important insights into cognition and self-consciousness, it has long been viewed as unusually obscure. Many philosophers have tried to avoid the transcendental psychology that Kant employed. By contrast, Patricia Kitcher follows Kant's careful delineation of the necessary conditions for knowledge and his intricate argument that (...) knowledge requires self-consciousness. She argues that far from being an exercise in armchair psychology, the thesis that thinkers must be aware of the connections among their mental states offers an astute analysis of the requirements of rational thought.The book opens by situating Kant's theories in the then contemporary debates about "apperception," personal identity and the relations between object cognition and self-consciousness. After laying out Kant's argument that the distinctive kind of knowledge that humans have requires a unified self- consciousness, Kitcher considers the implications of his theory for current problems in the philosophy of mind. If Kant is right that rational cognition requires acts of thought that are at least implicitly conscious, then theories of consciousness face a second "hard problem" beyond the familiar difficulties with the qualities of sensations. How is conscious reasoning to be understood? Kitcher shows that current accounts of the self-ascription of belief have great trouble in explaining the case where subjects know their reasons for the belief. She presents a "new" Kantian approach to handling this problem. In this way, the book reveals Kant as a thinker of great relevance to contemporary philosophy, one whose allegedly obscure achievements provide solutions to problems that are still with us. (shrink)

Locke's moral theory consists of two explicit and distinct elements — a broadly rationalist theory of natural law and a hedonistic conception of moral good. The rationalist account, which we find most prominently in his early Essays on the Law of Nature, is generally taken to consist in three things. First, Locke holds that our moral rules are founded on universal, divine natural laws. Second, such moral laws are taken to be discoverable by reason. Third, by dint of their divine (...) authorship, moral laws are obligatory and rationally discernible as such. Locke's hedonism, which is developed most fully in his later Essay Concerning Human Understanding, consists in the view that all good amounts to pleasure, with specifically moral good taken to consist in the pleasurable consequences of discharging one's moral duties. (shrink)